CHAPTER 204: SURVIVORS OF THE FLOOD

The sea had finally grown silent.

After the collapse of the city, the tides that Poseidon summoned returned to their restless stillness, as though the drowning had been no more than a passing sigh of the ocean. But on the blackened shore, amidst wreckage and bones, the air was thick with power.

He stood there, not as Dominic, not as a boy, but as Poseidon reborn. The glow in his eyes reflected the endless churn of the deep, not a mortal’s fleeting spark but a god’s eternal weight. The mortals who survived the drowning crawled out of the ruins, their faces pale, their mouths trembling with prayers—prayers not of worship, but of fear.

When Poseidon walked forward, the wet sand hardened under his bare feet as if stone itself remembered its duty to him. Waves bowed in shallow crescents around his ankles. Even the broken ships that should have been scattered by the tide dragged themselves upright, keels creaking like supplicants prostrating themselves before their lord.

"Is this the cost?" Poseidon murmured aloud, though the voice was not entirely his. It was layered—the mortal tone of Dominic braided with something vaster, ancient, a resonance that made gulls fall silent mid-flight. "A city for a message. A drowning for a name."

The name rang in the air, unspoken by mortals but stamped into every trembling heart: Poseidon.

They would not call him Dominic anymore. That boy had vanished beneath the surf of godhood.

---

Survivors of the Flood

Among the scattered ruins, voices rose. Not all drowned. Not yet.

A group of battered dockhands, soaked and bruised, clung to a piece of floating timber. One of them, a scarred man with a broken jaw, spat saltwater and croaked, "The god walks among us."

Another shook his head violently. "No god—just a curse. The drowned god eats what he touches."

But their argument died the moment Poseidon’s gaze shifted toward them. The sea itself pushed them gently ashore like fish tossed onto the sand. None dared move. None dared run.

Poseidon’s steps brought him closer, his shadow stretching long across their shivering forms. He knelt—not out of humility, but as though examining fragile things already half-broken.

"You clung to life," he said, voice soft as a whispering undertow. "Tell me, mortals—do you curse me... or do you kneel?"

The scarred man’s lips trembled. His knees buckled first, splashing into the wet sand. The others followed, one by one, as though their bodies had been caught in invisible currents dragging them down into reverence.

"We kneel," the broken-jawed man rasped. "Great one, we kneel."

Poseidon’s eyes flickered. The ocean inside him shifted with a soundless laugh, though his mortal memories recoiled. The kneeling did not comfort him. It hollowed him. He had not wanted their worship... but the sea demanded it.

---

The Voice in the Depths

Inside him, deep where mortal thought could not reach, something stirred.

Thalorin.

The abyssal essence that had once been sealed now pulsed through his veins, whispering in rhythms that matched the tide.

They will kneel. They will drown. It is the same. A city swallowed is a hymn sung in silence.

Poseidon clenched his jaw, forcing the whisper down, though it echoed regardless. "I will not be your echo," he muttered.

You are no echo, the voice of Thalorin replied, smooth as oil, vast as the Mariana trenches. You are the vessel. And vessels exist only to be filled.

The hum of the drowned bell seemed to echo again in his memory. He rose from the kneeling mortals, leaving them prostrate in the surf, and turned toward the horizon.

For beyond the sea’s edge, he felt it—the gaze of Olympus. The council that once sat above him, who had chained him, who now sharpened blades to bind him again.

High above, in halls of white fire, the gods of Olympus watched the mortal realm through the shimmering pool.

Zeus himself leaned forward, lightning crackling faintly at his knuckles. His golden eyes narrowed. "He does not tremble. Not even after sinking an entire city."

Beside him, Hera’s lips curled in disdain. "Mortals kneel already. It begins again. The drowned one thrives on awe and ruin. If we allow this, the world itself bends to his tide."

Ares snorted, armor rattling as he rose. "Then let us cut him down before he believes himself untouchable. I’ll march an army of fire and steel through his waters."

But Athena, calm and sharp, spoke before Zeus could answer. "No. Steel and fire will drown. You remember the last war, Father. Poseidon is not won with force. He is won by cunning... or not at all."

Zeus’s silence was heavy. He remembered. The oceans had not forgotten either.

"Then let it be cunning," Zeus said at last. "But mark me—if he steps one foot further into Olympus’s domain, I will strike."

---

Poseidon’s Claim

Back on the shore, Poseidon lifted his hand. The water obeyed—not as a servant, not as a tool, but as his own breath obeyed his lungs.

A massive column of seawater rose, spiraling upward until it shimmered with moonlight. Within its depths floated the wreckage of ships, bones of drowned men, idols from shattered temples.

With a wave of his hand, Poseidon scattered them back into the sea. Only one object remained in the column—gleaming, ancient, carved with sigils that glowed faintly against the night.

A relic.

The bell’s clapper. The heart of the drowned warning itself.

Poseidon wrapped his hand around it, the sigils burning against his skin but not harming him. He lifted it to the sky and the soundless hum that rippled outward made the mortals fall flat against the sand, ears bleeding.

"I claim this," Poseidon declared. "A city’s death-bell, to toll for the world."

The sea roared in answer.

---

The Mortal Realization

The Watcher of Tides, half-mad and soaked in ruin, crawled forward. His old voice cracked, but his words carried:

"Not Thalorin. Not Dominic. Not the boy. The god walks again. Poseidon has returned."

The survivors repeated it, some in terror, some in reverence.

Poseidon. Poseidon. Poseidon.

The name rolled through the crowd, through the sea, through the very marrow of the world. And in Olympus, the gods stiffened as the chant bled upward into their halls like smoke.

---

End of Chapter

The drowned city was silent, save for the waves. The mortals had named him. The gods had condemned him.

And Poseidon himself stood in between—caught between Dominic’s fading humanity and Thalorin’s abyssal hunger.

He raised the clapper of the drowned bell once more and whispered into the tide:

"Let them come."

And the sea whispered back.